


Appreciate the Change of Pace

by scintillio_coll



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, is this even a slowburn?, meandering nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 06:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15528714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scintillio_coll/pseuds/scintillio_coll
Summary: He refuses to miss the space-whale, because he made a solemn promise to never, ever, back in a moment of such spirit numbing boredom he thought he’d cry. But he can admit that it was easier to deal with the idea of all this back there.Out of sight, out of mind. Safe and far away, too stretched out among stars and temporal boundaries to deal with. It wriggles in the pit of his baser emotions that he's here now and still hasn’t.





	Appreciate the Change of Pace

**Author's Note:**

> ‘Don’t get invested in a headcanon slated for death,’ I begged myself. 
> 
> ‘Fuckin stop me,’ I hissed while opening Word.  

It took an hour to find the tiny cave and another two to gather enough tinder for a fire. There was no morning, but after waking from enough sleep, it only took five to explore their new host from nose to tail. 

“It’s like a turtle.” 

Krolia shot him an amused glance, “We had tortoises in the desert.”

He couldn’t stop a small, surprised laugh before a beat of it slipped out. 

 

*

 

Pidge sets them down on a planet with an oxygen atmosphere, curving their descent to a longitude with a few hours of sunshine left in it. Keith can hear her argue with Coran nearby while they set up camp among the sparse, short trees; everyone unconsciously diffusing into a circle around where Shiro is napping in thin shade. Kaltenecker lowes nervously from the grassy patch of forest Lance leads her to, whispering in her ear and suspiciously eyeing the wolf.

Keith’s still a little twitchy and restless himself, startles when he catches anyone except his mom and their pet in his periphery. It’s a relief, a good surprise, but a surprise none the less. Still jerking through the transition from near total privacy to bathing in alien rivers next to a half dozen others. 

Lance loops one end of a long, coiled rope around the cow’s neck and stoops to stake the other end into the ground, giving her lax freedom to amble about. Keith can’t help but watch, even though it’s one of the duller tableaus currently surrounding him. He refuses to miss the space-whale, because he made a solemn promise to never,  _ever_ , back in a moment of such spirit numbing boredom he thought he’d cry. But he can admit that it was easier to deal with the idea of all this back there. 

Out of sight, out of mind. Safe and far away, too stretched out among stars and temporal boundaries to deal with. It wriggles in the pit of his baser emotions that he's here now and still hasn’t. 

“So uh,” Keith turns to the voice at his side, “How old do you think you are now?” 

Hunk twirls a large knife in one hand, a dish towel slung over one shoulder, the two medium-sized mice perched on the other. It’s out-of-place domestic for the outdoorsy setting. 

Keith smiles at him and shrugs, enjoying the angle of Hunk’s face his new height provides, “20, 21 maybe. Does it matter?” 

Hunk whistles and looks impressed as he contemplates the Quantum Abyss, crunching numbers with more brainpower than Keith’s got to spare. “Too bad your ID still says 19. Can’t even buy booze.” 

The breeze winnows its way between them, a fresh, cool wind that had been impossible in space. It picks up fragments of the Spanish Lance is murmuring and even though Keith won’t look, he sees his movements in the corner of his eye. 

“That’s ok. I’ve gotten good at being patient.” 

 

*

 

It took a week for them to figure out exactly what was edible and what made them retch in the bushes dotting their ride’s underbelly. Another two to perfect the moisture traps. By the time they hit a month, a predictable routine that he couldn't help resenting was in place. 

“It’ll learn to depend on you,” his mother warned the first time he tossed a hunk of raw meat to the dog-like creature that followed them home. She shrugged when he simply wiped his hands on his thighs.

Her rigid pragmatism wasn’t a veneer or a defense mechanism, didn’t cover a hidden wellspring of mercy and soft kind core. They’d spent enough time in the past that he knew it was as much an elemental facet of her personality as recklessness was his. 

And just like him, it had been beaten into shape by necessity and bad situations, not because she wasn’t capable. She could be kind and merciful, when it was deemed safe enough, when she allowed it. Given the choice, she was hardly the type to let it starve, either.

“If you feed it, you should at least name it,” she suggested a few minutes later. 

The pup lolled his head towards him, tongue hanging from one side of his mouth and Keith smiled as he scratched his ears. 

“Yeah, I’ll come up with something.” 

 

*

 

The vibe around the fire is calm and quiet but not actually somber. Allura and Romelle chart the last 10,000 years effect on Altean idioms as Krolia cleans and sharpens her weapons, Shiro occasionally passing her a tool. Coran tinkers with his scrap-made, jury-rigged Monsters and Mana board projector while Pidge and Hunk offer unsolicited advice. 

Keith slouches lower in his jacket, chilly although not so much that he doesn’t enjoy another planet’s new environment, air that tastes fresh and completely foreign. The tiny red sun is low over the flat prairie and his body feels physical relief with the natural turning of another day.

Lance materializes next to him sometime after most have finished eating. He mechanically downs his dinner, elbows tucked in and shoulders hunched, folded over and silent. Two years ago, Keith would have assumed he was cold too, or just tired. It’s strange how a stretch of near solitude sharpened his people skills, like an interpersonal palate cleanser.   
   
He recognizes Lance’s mood from exile, knows it from all the times the light refracted onto something he’d rather stay repressed and in the dark. It’s the kind of sad embarrassment where you wish you could crack open your own chest and hide inside.  

He feels a small pang of sympathy, something relatively pure, at least for him, and unintentional. Keith’s used to his emotions swinging him about like a cudgel, anger or panic or jealously mowing down every good sense. He thinks that subtle commiseration is a pretty good place for this to start. 

It isn’t until Lance excuses himself that it registers with the others how strange he’s acting. He pops off some excuses, legitimate ones, he does need to collect his drying laundry and help inventory the crates they’d hurriedly packed and stashed in Red, but it’s weird he doesn’t use the meal as an excuse to linger, procrastinate and laze. 

“What’s with him?” Pidge asks, skewering a skinny branch into the fire. 

Coran shoots a panicked, paternal glare that screams _‘drop it!’_  and Allura instantly finds something fascinating about the ground. There’s a silence as awkward and suffocating as he and his mother used to share before the princess mutters an excuse even flimsier than Lance’s, dusts off her trousers, and wanders away in the opposite direction.

Keith catches the frustrated scowl Pidge sends both retreating figures, really just narrowed eyes and a firmness to her lips, and he feels a pluck of pride that he can read her so well, too. It’s like everyone was held on pause, frozen and unaltered, waiting for him to grow tall enough for a clear line of sight past himself.  

Coran nudges her knee with his own and says quietly, “She let him down easy enough. And he’s a catch, you know, not worried about number,” he glances at Keith, “four.” 

“The kid’s got a crush?” Krolia asks mildly, for all appearances barely interested. He closes his eyes for a moment and imagines the Castle’s long, solid dining room table, visualizes kicking his mother’s shin under it.

“I’ll talk to him,” Hunk sighs and begins to heft himself up, but Keith stops him with a soft, “Hey.” 

Hunk meets his gaze and Keith shakes his head, “Give him a minute.” 

As they ready for sleep the planet’s second moon starts to rise, and they use its light to roll out padding in the rear of the Black Lion’s head. It’s dim but he can see it when his mother offers an honest smile, “I’m sorry.” 

She’s not apologizing for what’s happening, she’s only sorry that he knows it is. 

 

*

 

They had an odd relationship with the light, the collapse and resurrection of time, their occasional and disruptive dinner guest. The interludes were enlightening, but also a tender kind of painful. More than once, he’d blinked the sunspots from his eyes only to see his mother’s back as she marched away, overcome by the reality of their pasts, the uncompromising sadness they contained, being boiled down and forced upon each other.

They avoided it as much as they could, an unspoken pact instantly made, quickly memorized all the niches and ridges capable of shielding them. Despite being mother and son, he didn’t like that this woman, the universe’s worst kind of stranger, was just as exposed as he was. 

She would say ‘ _sorry_ ’ a lot, after a silence had stretched on or she caught a thoughtful look on his face. He always ran his fingers through his hair and sighed, because she wasn’t apologizing for what she did, but for what they both are. 

Pragmatic and reckless and only kind when they allow it.

 

*

 

It’s not a surprise when Romelle asks to leave. She’s grateful to them, the emotion practically vibrates off of her, but she needs to be useful, proactive, and confinement in Blue won’t avenge her brother or right Lotor’s wrongs. 

Keith will miss her. In the past couple months, he’s become surprisingly accustomed to light glinting off her pale hair, the strong, even cadence of her voice in the background. But he also knows how much it itches to be  _still_  when all you want is to start moving on. 

They direct their course to intersect a small lunar Coalition outpost. The series of shacks are barely occupied, and its value to the war-effort debatable, but it’s only a six hour ride out of the way, the closest safe place near their original route. 

Matt blushes as soon as his shuttle door opens and he catches sight of the newest recruit, stuttering and tripping over himself as he welcomes her to the cause. Romelle looks amused but mostly unimpressed. Keith will miss that about her too.

There isn’t time for an extended break, just enough to share a quick meal, explain Shiro’s hair, and get in one solid round of hugs. 

“Give my best to Mom,” Matt says to Pidge at the open door of his ship. The green paladin sniffs uncharacteristically, Krolia clasps Romelle’s arm with maternal gravity, and mere seconds later they’re already a dot in the starry void. 

“Dude sure has a type,” Lance grumbles under his breath, releasing a small  _oof_  when Keith elbows him lightly in the gut. 

“That means absolutely nothing coming from you,” Keith reminds him quietly as they turn to follow the others back to their Lions.

Lance scoffs and opens his mouth and Keith can’t wait to see how he’ll try to debate something so stupidly undeniable.

“It’s not,” he glares and struggles to keep his voice down, gesturing emphatically, “It’s not all pretty white hair and cute Altean ears, ok? There’s more than just thinking someone’s hot. Allura is special. She’s talented and smart and like...scary strong. And when I died, she saved my  _life_ , man.” 

“You died?” Keith slows his gait, allowing a little distance to stretch between them and the rest of the team. He hears his pulse in his ears and feels sick like when he’s too hungry, but he’s not sure what emotion that’s meant to represent.  

Lance pulls an uncomfortable face and says like it’s an explanation, “For a sec.” 

Like  _no big deal._  

Keith’s mouth snaps open, ready to argue the sentiment, pry for the logistical details, demand a team meeting to drill safety protocols, or simply call him an idiot. But he does none of that. He’s the last person in the universe who gets to scold Lance on self-preservation instincts.

Instead, he blurts, “I’ve saved your life too.” 

Lance rolls his eyes, “And I’ve saved yours, what’s your point, Mullet?”

He panics internally when he realizes he has no idea what he was getting at, maybe just calling attention to the fact that Lance’s own scale included Keith as ‘special’. Luckily, his innate defensiveness kicks in and he spits, “That maybe saving each other’s lives isn’t a good enough reason to  _like_  someone. Or maybe the hair is more important than you think.”

Lance shoots him two sarcastic hand guns and begins to veer towards Red, “Let you know next time Shiro rescues me.”

 

*

 

The wolf, for all it was a mystical cosmic being born of the Quantum Abyss who wasn’t beholden to the limits of space-time, was still iffy on the whole ‘fetch’ thing. Instead, Keith had taken to jogging once a day around the fat belly of the space-whale with him bounding about his heals, zipping in and out of physical existence with clumsy exuberance. 

They were almost home, circuit completed, when the first rays of illumination rounded the tail of the beast, racing forward across the ground like a tidal wave. In a short, sharp instant, he wondered where a sun had suddenly come from and the wolf yipped and disappeared. Keith’s flight or fight instinct, the one thing he had ceaselessly relied on, urged his legs to pump faster.

He caught his mother’s gaze as he rounded the last bend, standing at the entrance of their shelter, bright overtaking them before he could even shout.    

He knew where they’d gone immediately, the same needling awareness pricking him as an observer as the actor. Matt’s voice faded from the cockpit and he watched his own hands angle the ship into the right trajectory for impact, felt them go nearly slack as soon as the decision had been made. 

He could still remember what he had been thinking then, at the end of the world, his friends at his back and the last battle he’d ever fight before him. He’d thought  _it’ll be ok, they have each other._   

He came back to himself, forced across the disorienting distance between the past and surreal present, like being drawn through a keyhole, and tried to clear the blur from his eyes as quickly as possible. 

Krolia’s hands were in fists gripped so tightly he knew she’d probably drawn blood.

Being the only two creatures capable of speech on their living planet, they didn’t often need to even use each other’s names. It still felt clunky and obvious in his mouth when he spoke, “Mom…”

She held up one hand and yes, she’d left a row of pinpricks in her palm, “Just give me a minute, ok?” 

It was an honest request and when she stiffly walked away, he let her.

 

*

 

Shiro tilts his tablet away from the dim lights of their portable lanterns, checking his stats one more time with a deep sigh. He balances it on one knee and reaches for the die. 

The game board is makeshift, nothing more than a shallow bowl projected over the table randomly interspersed with pixelated geography and miniature figures. Keith never saw the Castle’s original set-up, but Coran promises an upgrade as soon as he finds time to program something more elegant. 

Rudimentary or not, it serves its purpose: to get Lance and Allura in the same place at the same time often enough to facilitate the resumption of normalcy as soon as possible. Considering the odd circumstances, the fact that most of their days are spent largely apart, only breaking for sleep and one hot meal, Lance has already managed to drag himself to the blurry line between depression and acceptance.  

The die skips across the board and wobbles onto the Altean hatch-mark for three. 

Shiro groans and chuckles when his paladin likeness is crushed by a cartoonish boulder and blinkers out with a forlorn beep. 

“That’s the third time this quest!” Pidge shouts, pretty evenly split between annoyed at the constant breaks in gameplay and fascinated by Shiro’s absurdly bad luck. 

Shiro casually shrugs and ruffles her hair, dropping his hand quickly when she tries to swipe at it.

He seems relaxed, unbothered by his losing streak. Calm drifts from him, a comforting confidence that’s been present more than absent lately regardless of their dire straits. 

Even more, he seems fine with his new position on the bench, riding shotgun with easy-going ambivalence. Despite the white hair, he looks younger and better rested than he has since before Kerberos. The Shiro who’d taken Keith in had hefted responsibility over his shoulders like an eager Atlas, as if only a great weight could keep him grounded. 

Honestly, it makes him stranger than the clone. He just doesn’t seem that worried anymore.

“What the-!” Lance suddenly shrieks, startling Hunk so much that he sprays a sip of water all over the writhing mass of purple tentacles and squinting eyes that’s just appeared on the board. 

“ _Klazgool!_ ” Coran whispers like it’s something meaningful, and the rest of the table gapes at Shiro in muted awe. Even the mice chitter lowly amongst themselves. He glances over to Keith, but he’s genuinely just as lost. 

“Uh yeah, trying something new. At least for the rest of this game,” Shiro says lightly, smiling. “No need to force something that isn’t working.” 

Keith’s eye is drawn to Lance. He’s chewing on his lower lip, appears a little thoughtful, a little struck and sad. He waits for him to glance over the table to Allura and hates the unwelcome kick of pleased surprise when he doesn’t. 

Hunk is still staring with interested disbelief as he reaches for the die. Shiro passes it over with raised eyebrows and an indulgent look. 

It’s impossible to know the catalyst for his new zen, but Keith has come up with a few guesses. 

Maybe he’s simply relieved to be out, taking up physical space, displacing air with lungs that actually expand and contract and legs that propel him. 

Or it could be he’s finally free of the arm, he had never fully accepted it as something that belonged to him, its presence warping into whatever the opposite of a phantom limb is. 

Or, possibly, up in the never-ending higher plane where Shiro hid, he had seen the future too.

 

*

 

She came back what may have been a few minutes or a few hours later, the floaty feeling of meaningless time had really started to get to him. 

There were four burnt red streaks on each pants leg where she’d wiped her seeping palms, but still buried her fingers in the wolf’s shaggy coat without looking bothered at all. 

“It’s not…it’s not a big deal.”

She stared at him thoughtfully, cleared her throat, the hesitant affection of the past months superseded by some other more basic emotion.

“It is, though,” she told him firmly, said it like she meant to wring a hundred things from those three words. That his life and sacrifice and all that she would have lost with it, were a  _big deal_.

“Keith, I’ve spent most of my life hiding in plain sight, lying to everyone around me.” 

Her head slowly nodded back and forth as she picked and discarded words. 

“Let’s try being people who don’t.”

 

*

 

The dwarf planet had been completely uninhabited until recently. It wasn’t a particularly appealing spot, no significant natural resources, limited fresh water, and soil that would need a fair deal of intervention to make arable.

But you’d never know it from the attitude of the settlers- refugees from several planets sucked dead by the Galra. They welcomed their tired heroes with unconditional goodwill, showing them around their growing town with a modest pride Keith was humbled by. 

He’s grateful for the hospitality, relieved to take a bath alone, and doesn’t bother to fight the weak, human anticipation of sleeping in a real bed. But he’d forgotten how loud that many people are, how the air goes a touch more humid with all the shared oxygen. It’s not a bad thing, he can appreciate the change of pace, but he hates that it’s unsettling. 

After the requisite socialization, everyone peels away to finish whatever unavoidable duties they have left. On his way out, Keith pulls Coran aside and asks what was turning into a nightly favor. The older man dumps a largely shunned plate from the potluck into a sack and swears that its appropriate canid food. 

“They’re like your fish!” he enthuses, “But if fish had followed an evolutionary path completely impossible in any of Earth’s oceans!”

They certainly smell pungent enough as he sets off to track down his disobedient pet. 

He finally finds him a good half an hour later, rolling in a field behind their lodging, snapping playfully at shiny, alien bugs as they flit through the shabby grass. Kaltenecker grazes mere feet away, now so unbothered by the other’s presence it’s like they’d been raised together. 

Lance is a sprawled starfish atop a small hill nearby, weed stalk bobbing as it’s chewed between teeth, looking every inch the Cuban farm boy he’d often tried to hide. 

He gives Keith a salute after he bluntly dumps the fish-ish creatures out, drawing both animals and the boy’s attention as he treks up the knoll and gracelessly collapses beside him.  

“Could you have gotten him a smellier dinner?” Lance grouses. 

“It was our dinner, too,” Keith sighs, “Bet there’s leftovers if you hurry.” 

He props himself up by an elbow and surveys the empty space around them from the higher ground. He takes extra pleasure in the sloping yellow hills and long, rolling line of the horizon.

Lance just narrows his eyes and flicks the stalk from his mouth, “Gotta see to my girl first.”

Keith snorts at that. It’s, well  _cute_  is a dumb word and he refuses to use it, but his vocabulary isn’t sentimentally advanced enough to name it. Lance’s commitment to the cow’s well-being was always the one responsibility he never tried to shirk. Keith gets caught in a dust up of fondness when he realizes that’s because Lance doesn’t think of her as a chore, he just loves the dozy thing. 

“So you never said, what’s his name?”

“Whose?” Keith deflects, flinching internally. He can guess where this is going. 

“Your cosmic fox!”

“Comic Wolf,” he responds immediately.

Lance huffs out a breath that is so unexpected it seems to startle him, “Fine, cosmic wolf.” 

Keith just levels a humorless stare at him and Lance pulls away in horrified disbelief, “That’s not what you call him.” 

Keith feels a laugh shake his shoulders at how absurd the issue is, “Nothing else ever stuck!”

“Did you  _try?_ ” Lance demands to know, now leaning in like he’s conducting an interrogation.

“Well, he’s blue and kinda dopey so we called him ‘Lance’ for a while,” Keith taunts. 

He waits for him to take the bait and snap back, but Lance just cracks a smug smile and blows a raspberry at him, “Whatever, Yorak.” 

Keith feels his neck go hot and turns away, “I never should have told you guys that.”  

 

*

 

Somehow, though, compared to the involuntary excision and exposure of highly personal and private past events, the visions of the future were worse. 

They made him feel as if he was lost in a place that only seemed familiar, his brain firing a neuron with no partner, frantically attempting to contextualize an event that didn’t exist. Floating alone through a void more barren than space. 

It was dumb, but they also made him dizzy with guilt, same as when he’d stuff gas station jerky in the waistband of his pants. A thief, snatching and hoarding things that he hadn’t earned, belonging to a man he was not yet. 

_Shiro’s glare while the world crumbles, a girl with pale hair, the Black lion over an Earth ocean, the taste of foreign air, the thrill and panic that simmers low in his chest before doing something stupid- all echoes and glimpses of future potentialities laid out piecemeal._

The slim positive, flimsy silver lining, was they proved he wouldn’t end up a skeleton drifting for all eternity on the back of an astral humpback. 

“And at least I won’t live with my mom forever,” he muttered to himself sarcastically, gathering firewood alone.

 

*

 

Keith only really wanted three things during his confinement: the Teleduv, ice water, and clean clothes. If he could have asked for any small charity, it would have been a spare shirt, some fresh socks, or an extra pair of boxers. Being reunited with his stuff, although it was immediately dumped into a crate and shoved on Black, drove home the reality of his return more than forming Voltron did. Reminded him that he was still something beyond a Paladin or a son, even if that was just a man with more than one t-shirt.

But, in equal reactionary contrast, reinforcing once again the ridiculous amount of time he was away, none of his pants fit. 

They were all too snug at the waist and about three inches short, pulled dangerously tight around the thighs when he took a full step. He’d made do with an extra pair from Shiro, but it wasn’t like the guy had a lot on hand to begin with. 

It’s a conversation he’s been putting off, a request he truly deluded himself into thinking wasn't necessary. But they’re still two weeks out from Olkarion and he has extremely limited options on where to get a spare pair of suit leggings.  

“No one else is tall enough,” he explains simply, hovering at the threshold of Red’s cockpit.

“I’m shorter than you now,” Lance lobs back with a sour look from the other side of the room, back against the wall and legs sprawled across his bedroll. 

Keith rolls his eyes, “Not by that much, they’ll fit.” 

Lance hefts himself up with a dramatic sigh, like he’s doing him a great service, and mutters something about Keith being desperate to get in his pants. As he crouches to dig through a soft bag stuffed with rolled up clothes, Keith can’t help but measure the long line of his back, study the way his legs make a switchback out of two drawn-out segments. It’s unsettling that he’s surpassed Lance in height, something blatantly out of the natural order that he would rather put back in its place. 

“Don’t think I’m done growing yet,” Lance declares, rising up to pass him a pair of pants and a couple baggy shirts. “Give me two years of working out and eating space grubs, I’ll outgrow you.”

Keith imagines having to look up into Lance’s face again, a full grown and filled out version. The idea zips pleasantly through some low, deep part of him. It still comes as a shock, but that’s probably the only reason he’s able to trust it at all.

“I’m sure you will, Lance,” he responds, and congratulates himself on managing a sarcastic tone.      
     
“I will! And then I’ll steal  _your_  pants,” he ludicrously threatens. Keith can’t stop the brainless grin that jolts through his lips, and hopes it doesn’t look like he’s mocking him. He has to lower his gaze just the tiniest bit to meet Lance’s eyes, and decides he can live with being taller, for now.  

Strolling down the ramp, he briefly wonders if this was a conversation they were always going to have, or if the shreds of the future he can’t stop trying to weave together forced it.

 

*  
 

Keith didn't keep track of the time. He knew that his mother did, she trekked every ‘morning’ to a boulder on the port side of their personal spacecraft and etched a dash into it with a sharp fragment of exoskeleton. 

Keith’s clock was all mental, more of a metronome really, a chant in his head repeating with growing desperation-  _when when when?_

He’d ask, occasionally, how long they’d been reluctant roommates with a celestial leviathan, wanting to take note of the wolf’s growth over time or simply negligently curious. But he didn’t quite see the point of it with no idea when their mission would end.

Not to mention, he was hit by swooping vertigo, truly shocked every time the update was  _three months five months 7 and a half_ , the thought of all those dashes making him sick to his stomach.  

But that’s how he knew they had been gone about eight months and that the light hadn’t come in weeks. They suspected they were out of range, based on Krolia’s rough calculations. 

It can only be expected that they let their guard down. Got too confident in the tiny terrarium world- perched atop an unchanging ecosystem, each day without a dawn or sunset blurring in the one before it.

They were walking the short distance away to his mother’s experimental raised garden plots. He half listened to her muse about the soil pH on an ancient, objectively impossible space-monster and once again swore that he would never miss this place.  

Almost going without notice, a gauzy glimmer ghosted on the ground ahead, the source barely visible on their false horizon, like hints of sunrise in a polar spring. 

Krolia’s mouth snapped shut and she lightly rolled on her feet. They lunged in tandem for an outcropping to the left, even though he already knew it was pointless. Krolia’s shins and a shoulder illuminating were the last things Keith saw.

A moment later, he frowned and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, squeezing and rubbing until enough time had passed for his vision to clear. But also because he didn’t want to look his mother in the face. 

He heard the wolf manifest and disappear twice before he finally lowered his hands.

Krolia peered at him curiously, opening her mouth as if to speak but held on the knifepoint of restraint. Keith just shook his head, color blotched his neck. 

“I don’t  _know_ ,” he growled and stalked off.

She didn’t follow him, and Keith wished there was actual, true ground so he could dig a hole and bury himself.  

 

*

 

Olkarion isn’t exactly halfway, but they treat it like a milestone none the less. There are a lot of familiar faces, good food, and, most importantly, the biologic and technical resources necessary to build Shiro a new prosthetic. 

Sure, it wouldn’t be able to interface with Galra tech and Keith guesses they’re going to leave out the whole plasma torch thing, but Ryner promises an impressive replacement. It’ll take about a week to complete, but no one seems disappointed about a tiny respite. Catching a bit of breath.  

It’s stabilizing, whole days lit by a sun. He’s useless in the lab, no science prodigy or Altean alchemist, but he tries to be productive with his days. He takes advantage of the training equipment, hurries to regain some of that single-minded muscle memory. And he sets aside part of every morning to help Coran, meticulously packing supplies for the remainder of their journey.

But more often than not, he finds himself getting dragged along by whatever idea Lance has come up with. They tramp around with the wolf and the mice- all four of whom fit easily between his two tufted ears. Kaltenecker gets a visit in her temporary pen, they venture into the claustrophobic jungle, and passively goad each other into poking around places on site they probably aren’t allowed. 

His favorite is the simplest- laying in the sun while Lance whines about how pale he’s gotten.  

Everyone still reassembles for meals, an innate habit that’s reminiscent of the syndicated family sitcoms he used to watch. It’s all Hunk’s chatter and Pidge grabbing for seconds, his mother and her faint smile solidly beside him. Shiro and Allura detail the arm’s progress after Lance takes her wish-list order for replacement cosmetics. 

He’s glad to see them interact so naturally despite the nearly imperceptible wiggling in his guts. It’s popped up a half dozen times recently. It’s definitely not jealously, too benign for that, and he notices it even when Allura’s not around. But he can believe both feelings share a common ancestor, an offshoot of base, lizard-brain priorities. 

_Damn_ , he thinks to himself,  _who knew complex emotion could be such a drag._  

He’s gotten good at smothering it, depriving it of oxygen, didn’t want to accept it because accepting it means accepting everything that feeling it implies. 

But he’s old enough now to know that it’s doubt. And a little bit of fear. The worried gnaw of anticipation, like the night before the first day of school. Nervous that he will never get what was promised, that he will be waiting on the future with bated breath until the universe runs out of air. That the one thing he thought he’d get but didn’t want is actually the thing he wants but won’t have.  

Just the slightest bit scared the light told the truth about everything but this. 

 

*

 

_The glare overtook everything around him, enveloping the present and shuffling him through realities to be dumped someplace distant with paranormal sleight of hand._

_He saw himself, a man he will never meet because he'll get to know him by inches. Watched as he stopped to stand before a giant window built into a nearly identical but subtly different Castle’s hallway. Angles minimally changed yet still pleasing, the low frequency and hum of her engines a consoling buzz._

_He stared out onto Earth, jewel-vibrant, blue and green and red against the hollow nothingness always threatening to swallow it._

_It took a second to recognize, they’ve hovered above so many planets, and he had never gotten to see it like this, denied the chance to glance back during their first frantic escape. He felt more protective of it out here, more tolerant of all its ingrown flaws. It was easier to call it home when it was a place he could choose to return to._

_“I can’t help feeling like you already knew.”_

_He caught sight of Lance over one shoulder. He’d aged, was taller than Keith again, and had a slim scar over one eyebrow that belied what must have been a significant injury. There was a solidity and balance to him despite the same old adolescent self-satisfaction he carried himself with._

_The Keith-he-is-not-yet frowned with a question as Lance closed in, “Knew what?”_

_The taller man wound an arm about Keith’s waist from behind and pressed his face wearily into the soft angle of his neck._

_“Well,” he sighed, “That we’d live for one.”_

_Keith gripped the arm around him with two hands._

 

*

 

“Hey,” Lance whispers, at more or less full volume, from across the infirmary. He leans into the doorway as Keith peers up from a sloppily packed box of bandages. “ _Psst_ , Keith.” 

He jabs his thumb towards the hallway, and glances meaningfully at Coran’s back, who is fortunately too distracted measuring disinfectant goop into a shatterproof jar to turn around.  

“I’m helping,” Keith mouths.

Lance rolls his eyes and throws his hands up, “Help  _me_  instead.” 

Coran just shakes his head with an indulgent sigh and says over one shoulder, “Oh, go on. We’ll be back on the way soon and you won’t get to stretch your legs.” 

They step out into a dry breeze and warm glow, setting out for a flat stretch of open space where Lance can set up some targets. The wolf appears on the path ahead, heralded by a chorus of mouse squeaks. 

When Lance stoops to roll up his loose Olkari Engineer Corp issue pants, Keith is reminded of his favor, “I can give you those pants back now.”

“Keep ‘em,” he replies instantly.

Keith shoots him a suspicious look and Lance claps him on the back and starts up again, “At my funeral you can tell everyone how generous I am.” 

Keith snorts, “You think I’ll outlive you?” 

“You already have,” he quips lightly.  

Keith doesn’t bother faking a different reaction, and it’s an unfair fight between a glare and an anxious frown. 

“You wanna joke about when you died?” he asks seriously. It’s a more obvious fear that numbs his fingertips, makes the ground slope oddly. Much easier to define, a blunt instrument instead of a precise tool. 

Lance grins, “What? Of anyone I thought you’d be into the whole martyr thing.” 

Keith squints, fat lot of good all his sacrifices did, in the end, “It didn’t work on Allura either.” 

Lance huffs and his mouth quirks a little, “Yeah, yeah, my death was in vain, I know. You think I should lay off girls for a minute? Probably better for my health.” 

Lance rubs his fingers across his lips and looks momentarily confused by whatever’s flipping through his thoughts, gaze skimming the thick treetops and low clouds. After a pause he chuckles quietly and says, “No need to force something that isn’t working.”

Keith can’t help but stare at him, the self-deprecating smirk on his face and dark blue eyes made warmer in the sunlight. He’s sweaty and smiling and little bit more jaded than before and he’s never looked so subjectively handsome. So much so that the feeling spilling through Keith’s lungs is more overwhelming than joyful. 

Keith realizes, _No, this is where it starts._

He thanks the breeze when it cools his cheeks and twirls a lock of hair on Lance’s forehead. 

“Good plan,” he forces out of a throat and chest that are suddenly way too tight.

They're still so far from home, from finishing, from the mostly unknown future Keith can’t help waiting for. 

But they’re about halfway and Keith has gotten really good at being patient. 

 

*

 

“You aren’t tied to it,” his mother had tried to assure him once, as the light retreated, drifting stars above their heads replacing the spark of future. _When?_ beat against his temples. 

“You can choose now.” 

The weird thing was, the thing he could never explain, was somehow he already had. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The greatest restraint I’ve ever displayed in my whole life was not naming that cosmic wolf.
> 
> Reviews always appreciated!


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